{"id":18992,"date":"2013-10-18T13:19:49","date_gmt":"2013-10-18T21:19:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/?p=18992"},"modified":"2013-10-18T13:19:49","modified_gmt":"2013-10-18T21:19:49","slug":"watch-the-national-perform-i-should-live-in-salt-for-gibson-austin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/2013-10\/watch-the-national-perform-i-should-live-in-salt-for-gibson-austin\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch The National Perform “I Should Live In Salt” for Gibson Austin"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"130531-The-National05_1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We’ve got a raging atomic (for peace)<\/strong> hangover, but were revived upon seeing The National<\/strong> performing one our personal (literally) favorites off of Trouble Will Find Me<\/strong><\/em>, I Should Live In Salt<\/strong> <\/em>unplugged for Gibson<\/strong>, Austin.\u00a0 Check it out below.\u00a0 Once again the Dessners<\/strong> showed up on appropriately-branded guitars.<\/p>\n

Singer Matt Berninger<\/strong> had this to say about the song’s meaning\u00a0 when interviewed by NPR<\/strong> in June:<\/p>\n

“Tell us a little bit about the lyrics to “I Should Live in Salt.”\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

“I write all the lyrics, and this one was sort of inspired \u2014 very much inspired \u2014 by my younger brother, Tom, who’s nine years younger than I am. And he was on my mind a lot while we were making this record because he was living with my wife and I at the time. Still \u2014 actually still does. So he was on my mind and in my house….We’re very different brothers. Whereas I might be kind of buttoned-up and ambitious, he’s more lax in his approach to the universe, I guess. We love each other a great deal, but there’s often a lot of conflict between the two of us.”<\/p>\n

And there’s some fun imagery in one of the verses: “Can you turn the TV down? You should know me better than that.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The lyrics to that are like a bunch of little fragments of thoughts about him. And, truthfully, it’s about us actually getting to know each other as adults, because I went off to college when he was a little kid. He was 9 when I was 18 and went off to college, and then I moved to New York after that.<\/strong> And he kind of went his own \u2014 a different path.<\/p>\n

“I felt a lot of guilt, because I think [he] needed an older brother the most when you start hitting your teens, and that’s when I sort of took off and disappeared on him a little bit.<\/strong> I mean, we’ve been close our whole lives. But then, when he came and joined us on the tour as a roadie, it was the first time we were spending a lot of time together as adults. And it was a big shift in our relationship and trying to figure out how to love each other and respect each other as adults \u2014 not just this much older-younger brother sibling dynamic. So the song kind of is a reflection on all of that.”<\/p>\n

And you said you felt a little guilt, but the chorus is, “I should live in salt for leaving you behind.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>“Honestly, that was just kind of an abstract image or something in my head and I don’t know. I think Lot’s<\/strong> wife turned to salt when she looked back at the city. I think they used to pack bodies in salt. So there’s not specifically any meaning into it directly, but it seemed like a bad thing to have to live in salt. A lot of my lyrics are approximate meaning without me knowing why they sound right.”<\/p>\n

Reminds us of some siblings we know.\u00a0 Take good care of one another.<\/p>\n